I appreciate the feedback. After posting this, I went ahead and bit the bullet and switched to a 31/0/10 PvP build - no dark ward, improved pvp abilities. I found that my survivability did go up, but only moderately. I watched a video that Murdoc posted yesterday and was impressed. He is 50 and far better @ pvp than I am, but I was trying to learn what I could from watching him. I found that my initial attempt at the darkness build was flawed in spec & in abilities. I have now played several games - 5 hours or so with only 5-10 in between games and I am enjoying the spec. I am 45 and did have enough points to have VS. I could hit like a truck in deception, but compared myself to a ceramic knife - sharp as hell, but if you drop me I'm gonna shatter. I still find myself doing fairly well in the charts...not always tops, but normally in the top 3 - sometimes #1 though. @Murdoc - thank you for posting your video on youtube - I was able to gain information that helped a lot in huttball.

Looking for information regarding PRE 50 PvP, as I understand that 50 Assassin isn't the same game as Pre 50. Right now I'm Valor 44 using Deception. 3/31/0 and I am decently geared out. I wouldn't say that I have a lot of problems killing most people. However, with that said, I'm wondering if I should switch to a Darkness build Pre 50 in order to learn it better. Is the 31/0/10 build the only truly viable 50 PvP build? Is a variant of that spec...say a 31/0/3 build worth it in the 11-49 bracket? I switched to that build for about 4-5 games a couple days ago, but found that I wasn't doing as well. I'll admit that I didn't know exactly what I was doing in that spec either and felt more like I was button punching rather than prioritizing the abilities. Suggestions?

2/2 snap shot